Emergency Medical Hologram, MD
by Troodon
Summary: Part 2: If he hooked himself up to that monitor, nothing would move, nothing would glow. He would be dead to it. But he knew better. He's not dead... The Doctor accepts. Exploring again the Doctor's thoughts and a conversation with a difficult patient.
1. Reaffirmation

Author's Note: Spoilers for and up until season 3, episode 18, "Darkling". I also threw in some foreshadowing and possible spoilers for later episodes if you look carefully. I wrote this after thinking that the ending of "Darkling" left many unresolved issues for the Doctor to, possibly, deal with. I have tried to capture the characters' voices and wrestled mightily with the 'technobabble', and I still feel those areas could use some work so feedback would be greatly welcomed. Thanks!

_Disclaimer: The following is a piece of fanfiction. No money is made off this. There is no copyright infringement intended; all characters, concepts and backgrounds belong to the Star Trek franchise._

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**Emergency Medical Hologram, M.D.**

1. Reaffirmation

"Hey, Doc," a good-humoured crewman greeted in passing, "Working late?"

Voyager's EMH rarely ventured out of sickbay during gamma shift, when the ship operated on a skeleton crew and the only sounds were the soft murmur of voices and footsteps overlaying the deeper hum of the engines.

"I hope there's no need for that," the Doctor managed to say, with only a shade less than his usual aplomb, and the crewman grinned in answer as they parted at an intersection. The Doctor continued, walking and thinking.

Something had happened today…something which was still disturbing the usual comfort of the good Doctor's mind, though he would not openly reveal his trouble to the crew. He needed some place to sort out his confused "feelings", so to speak, and the cold sterility of sickbay had, for once, not lent itself to him.

Maybe he was…overconfident in his assumptions, he mused as he walked, nodding occasionally to a passing crewmember. No wonder. He had the accumulated knowledge and experience of forty-seven excellent surgeons, but yet he couldn't treat his own malfunctions. With his understanding of psychology, he was practically the ship's counsellor in all but name, but yet he couldn't improve himself.

_What was I thinking, adding new personality subroutines without regard for the consequences?_ Rushing into things was a practice most unbecoming a doctor. He thought he hadn't rushed. He'd done his research, but…

_Who will I become next, a disillusioned medical hologram on a killing spree?_

He found that faintly ironic, in a tragic operatic way. How ludicrous! But he shuddered despite himself. Trying to distance himself from the day's events, he had a go at a snippet of an aria from Mozart's _The Magic Flute_, but for once his infallible memory failed him. He could not lose himself in his hobbies tonight.

The Doctor was aware he was trying to reassure himself and failing. He remembered vividly the way he had gripped Kes, his tactile sensors on overload, his imaging array disintegrating as they struggled, the way her body had tensed, the conflicting mix of concern and fear in her eyes as she pleaded with him, the shock as his new personality hurled them both over the precipice.

_Who will I hurt next? Aren't I supposed to "do no harm"? _

After he was deemed in "full health" and after he got out of those awful clothes, he had gone to personally thank the Captain who, with her uncanny sense of timing, had transported them to Voyager as they fell from the crag. He had wanted to, but he could not find her. Well, he was sure Kes had done so already. She was the kind of person who would care about doing something like that. She was the kindest person he knew, one of the first who truly accepted him for what he was, one of the first who encouraged him to be more than he was supposed to be.

_Suppose, suppose what might've happened with the transporters hadn't worked..._

He tightened his lips as he remembered, with guilt, how he had treated her and her reaction after their little adventure. She had not said a hurtful word to him, just a forgiving,

"It wasn't _you_, Doctor."

Then she'd asked him if he was all right. There were so much he wanted to tell her, but he couldn't. And he could only say a forced, "I'm perfectly fine", watching her walk away from him to say a last goodbye to Zahir, that daring traveler who caused all this trouble in the first place. What Kes saw in him the Doctor would never know.

_There I go blaming someone else again._ He paused. _Why can't I face my mistakes?_

He squared his shoulders and summoned the strength of an operatic hero facing the serpent of his guilt head on.

_Emergency Medical Holographic Program AK-1, Diagnostic and Surgical Subroutine Omega 323_,_ bloated with the pride of being the unofficial Chief Medical Officer of the Federation Starship Voyager, had gone against his oath. He had hurt, instead of healed. He had made the misguided decision to add those personality subroutines to his program. He had so much confidence in his research that he did not stop to question his actions. He made that decision to "recreate" himself and in doing so failed devastatingly. _

Finally, he had to face a dreaded question nagging at him:

_What will I do next? _

He found himself stepping into the mess hall with only a vague idea of getting into a turbolift and traversing the corridors. He rarely ventured into the mess hall, as the food and the company were irritating reminders of his existence as a mere hologram. The mess during gamma shift was empty and silent, with a few cold salads and congealing leola root stew left out for any peckish crewmember with an iron stomach. The annoying Talaxian was nowhere to be found. Good, he smiled cynically. This was his first stroke of luck in a hellish day.

He headed for a corner seat near the windows, determined to make full use of his sensitive mood. Maybe he could stare out at the stars flying by and ponder his existence romantically.

He had only been pondering poetically for few minutes when the mess hall door swished opened. Half-hidden in the shadows of his reflective nook, the Doctor watched bemusedly as a frazzled-looking Lieutenant Torres, in civvies, entered and grimly started to punch commands into the replicator. A mug appeared and Torres raised the mug to her lips hesitantly. Then—

"That p'taq! Spinach juice!" she cursed, her voice echoing stridently across the room. She tossed the mug and its contents into the recycler and tapped furiously at the replicator controls while the Doctor, shaken out of his gloom, watched her movements with increasing curiosity.

Moments later, another mug, this time steaming hot, appeared and Torres took a tentative sip. She smiled with satisfaction and made her way over to a seat by the windows. The Doctor cleared his throat noisily.

She turned and her sharp gaze swept over him with surprise. "Well, _you're_ up late, Doctor," she said, coming over. "Mind if I join you?"

He filed away his confusing thoughts for later analysis and sniffed, almost automatically, "Would you care if I did mind?" She rolled her eyes but settled into the seat opposite from him anyway.

"So how are you? Stable?" she asked, referring to his matrix. She was scrutinizing him carefully. "You looked…upset. That's not like you."

"I'm fine," he said dismissively. He could tell her hands were itching to go poke around in his mobile emitter, and suddenly he very much wanted his program to be left alone. Changing the subject quickly, he said, "That was an impressive display of vulgar language, lieutenant," and gestured at the mug cradled in her hands. She was unruffled.

"What, this? I couldn't sleep, so I went to get a drink. Someone, though, reprogrammed the patterns for raktajino in my replicator to give 'Spinach juice, with a touch of pear, lukewarm'. So I came here, only to find someone had fooled around with these replicators as well."

"Who would be foolish enough to do that, I wonder."

"I'll bet you it was Paris. He would do something immature like that," she replied. He saw that she smiled a little at the end when she said Paris' name, a secret smile she thought no one could see. He wondered at the strength of that emotion which would trigger such a reaction from her. His own love story seemed so long ago, and he brushed the thought aside and criticized,

"Do you know how many noxious substances are in that vile drink? It's fattening, unhealthy and completely devoid of nutritional value. Why do you persist in drinking it?"

"It tastes good," Torres said. He couldn't gainsay that. He looked at the steaming liquid and wondered what taste would be like. Pain he had already experienced, but to taste, one day…

"You're not going to tell me what to drink now, are you?" she said with an edge in her voice.

"Well, whatever I told you wouldn't be any use, would it? You ate that salad," he replied. He took the opportunity to take another look at her with a physician's eye, observing the dark circles under her eyes and the faint lines of exhaustion at the corners. Unconsciously, without thinking, he switched to his doctor mode. "As your Doctor, I'm going to recommend you take some time off. And I forbid you to go anywhere near that vegetable Neelix brought onboard."

Torres shot him another warning glare. "I didn't think a small salad would do any harm," she said. "I just didn't think. Nor did you," she added pointedly. The Doctor knew she wasn't referring to his phantom diet, but he feigned ignorance all the same.

"So…what kept you up, then? Do I need to cure an insomniac now? Would a hypospray be in order?" he asked, his false cheeriness changing into real concern. Unwillingly he remembered what he had done to her: his alter ego had used neural inhibitors and chemical shots to paralyse her body. It must have been a nightmare for Torres, so used to being in control, to have her body completely fail her that way.

She was evidently thinking of the same thing. "I really don't think I need any more shots," she said wryly, and he winced. It was strange how responsible he felt.

"Lieutenant," he began, hesitant, "I'm truly sorry for what I did to you. Looking back as a doctor, I find my actions inexcusable. I—"

She took a deep breath and forced him to look at her. "This is what's troubling you, isn't it? What happened in sickbay, and with Kes and the Mokail Travelers?"

His silence gave her the answer. She was right on the mark, and he couldn't deny it. Torres set down her mug with a decisive click. "Doctor, it wasn't you; it was a new personality from those subroutines you added. You can't hold yourself responsible for what he did."

_It wasn't you._ That was what Kes had said. But if that Dr. Hyde-like persona wasn't him, who was he, really?

"But you _could_ have put a bit more thought into the kind of subroutines you added to your program, Doc," she reprimanded. He couldn't help but grow defensive.

"Is it so wrong of me to try and improve myself?" he demanded.

She took another sip before answering, "No. I think improving oneself is a very commendable goal. Enough people try to decide that for me. It's just…you've got to be careful not to lose yourself in the process."

She looked embarrassed and returned to the safety of studying her raktajino.

_Don't lose yourself? Then…who am I?_

"Who am I, B'Elanna?" he asked abruptly. "Who am I to you?"

Taken aback, she said slowly, "Well, to me, you're the Doctor. You take care of us, save our lives, that sort of thing. _And_ you're very good at it."

He waited for more. He would have smiled smugly at her reluctant acknowledgement of his skills, but he was thinking of more pressing matters and forehead furrowed instead.

"That's it?" he exclaimed.

She sighed with some exasperation. "What more do you want?"

He stood up and began to pace. "That's exactly it. What more do I want? I'm only a projection, a bunch of holomatter, photons and force fields. That's all I am to you. My existence, as I know it, has been programmed for me. But when I made choices, like today, I turned into…him. If I'm not that monster I created…then what am I?"

Torres was silent. He did not expect an answer. His voice shook as he continued, but he had no thought of stopping. He had to literally get this out of his system.

"I diagnosed myself. I thought my 'lack' of a bedside manner was a concern, so I treated the problem, just like any other case. I thought I was above it all…I, a sentient, self-aware hologram! I thought I knew it all, but in the end I'm only a hologram who just happened to be a doctor. And I failed even at that. I intentionally harmed people, B'Elanna. I might as well be deactivated."

Defeated, he turned away. There: his deepest fears were out in the open, and confessed to the volatile lieutenant, of all people. She would never realize how much it cost him to admit his doubts. A hologram was all he would ever be. Why did he ever try to exceed his limitations? He was not programmed that way. He was only the EMH, temporary, expendable.

The only sound that greeted those heartbreaking words could only be described as an audible snort.

He whirled away from the window, indignant. "Excuse me?" He saw the corners of her mouth twitching upwards. Was she laughing at him?

She sobered and returned his glare with one of her own. "I'm just surprised. It's not everyday the Doc struggles with something as mundane as an identity crisis. It's not everyday the great Doctor feels worthless."

"I'm...I'm not worthless!" he immediately bristled, then realized he'd fallen into a trap.

"Say it again, _Doc_," she said.

He raised an eyebrow at her. "Is this supposed to be a reaffirmation of my self-worth?"

"Yes, it is," she said agreeably but firmly. "Sit down."

He sat, drawing back into himself.

"Since when did you become the ship's counsellor? I thought that was part of _my_ extended duties. But of course no one recognizes what I do anymore, not a word of appreciation..."

"Least of all yourself," she pointed out. "Why are you so hard on yourself? Yes, you were obsolete, but you're more than that now. You're our Doctor and councillor. You take care of the crew so we can take care of Voyager. You save my life and I sort out your program, even though you're a royal pain in the ass. Don't you see? You may be a hologram— I can't refute that— but you're a damn important part of our crew. And you shouldn't be thinking otherwise."

He gestured helplessly. "But…I almost killed today. When I wanted to protect Kes, I hurt her instead. That's not what doctors are for! Today—"

"— Is over, don't you get it? That was a new personality. It wasn't you, our Doctor. Try using that superior shiny head of yours." She leaned back in her seat and watched him with satisfaction, adding sarcastically, "Besides, this is the Delta Quadrant. We seem to be under murderous alien influences and chemical imbalances most of the time. Today was just your turn."

He wasn't sure what to think. He thought maybe his adaptive subroutine was working overtime processing all the conflicting data this unexpected conversation was feeding him.

"As for your question of 'who am I'," Torres said thoughtfully, "I don't think anyone else can answer that for you. You asked me what I thought about you, and I told you the truth." After a hesitation, she continued softly, "I'm still trying to sort out who I am."

He stared at her, seeing clearly her sudden vulnerability, remembering whom he was having this discussion with. If there were anyone else who would question his or her identity, it was she. The brash lieutenant was surprisingly perceptive. He managed a shadow of his old smile.

"I think that maybe I need to do some more exploring. About myself," he said. She blanched and said warningly,

"Then, _as your doctor,_ I'm going to recommend that you don't mess around with your behavioural subroutines again without thinking. Though I guess you would do that anyway, for the sake of "exploring your program", if that's what you have to do to find out who or what you are. I'll probably lose more sleep in fixing you up," she predicted with an exaggerated sigh.

"You'll lose more than time for sleeping, if all goes well between you and Mr. Paris," he retorted insinuatingly as she gaped with outrage. He had been observing their obvious attraction for each for quite a long time, and after her lecture he felt obligated in shooting a barb back. He may be oblivious to some things, but then he was a part of the ship's rumour mill.

_What will I do next?_ He thought happily.

Feeling strangely elated, even though he had been given even more philosophy to think about, he sprang from his chair with his old enthusiasm. Torres levelled him with a glare reminiscent of the Captain's.

"Repeat that and I'll have your program relegated to the brig!"

"Ah, but you can't!" he said triumphantly. "You need me, since you can't be bothered to learn how to wield a simple dermal regenerator. Soon I'll need to take time away from my experiments to heal the hurts you attain as a result of participating in some violent and reckless activity on the holodeck without the safeties on."

She swatted at him as they both left the mess hall smiling. Back in sickbay he gazed around with renewed determination and reaffirmed an old, wise oath.

"I swear this oath by Apollo physician, by Asclepius, by health and by all the gods and goddesses: In whatsoever place that I enter I will enter to help the sick and heal the injured, and I will do no harm."

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	2. Acceptance

Author's Note: Spoilers up til and for season 4, "Revulsion". This was another episode where I felt the Doc might have something to say at the end. Thank you to all my reviewers for chapter one, and please keep on helping me improve by giving me feedback! Thanks.

_Disclaimer: The following is a piece of fanfiction. No money is made off this. There is no copyright infringement intended; all characters, concepts and backgrounds belong to the StarTrek franchise/Paramount._

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**Emergency Medical Hologram, M.D.**

2. Acceptance

Voyager's illustrious Doctor was alerted of his patient's state of consciousness by a series of groans, grunts and garbled curses, growing successively louder with each passing interval. He stood up with a world-weary air when his keen ears detected the shift of clothing and a sharp intake of breath. Hurrying from his office, he confronted a red-faced B'Elanna Torres. Her legs were already swinging over the side of the biobed.

"_What_ are you doing?" the Doctor asked with alarm. "You're not fit to move around. Lie back down immediately!"

His only answer was a shaky breath. The lieutenant's eyes were shut in pain. Grabbing his tricorder, the Doctor ran a quick scan on her systems. _She's still in one piece._

"Well?" he said impatiently, made cross with fear. "Why can't you do as you're told? You're not a hologram; your body needs rest! Lie down!"

Exhausted brown eyes opened and glared back at him. "I can't," she finally mumbled, her voice still slurred by drugs. "Hurts too much."

He winced in sympathy. His own experience with the concept of pain still disturbed him; he could still feel the shock of the stabbing sensation that occurred whenever Starling pushed the right button. Under the threat of pain, he had succumbed rapidly to Starling's wishes, almost shamefully so.

Pressing a hypospray to her neck, he asked rhetorically, "Then why did you get up? There, this should relieve the pain." He supported her back and slowly she collapsed back onto the biobed. He scanned her again. Vital signs: elevated but steady. _Good._ Superficial injuries: fully healed. On the outside B'Elanna looked 'as good as new', but he knew differently. He had stopped the internal bleeding, but there was not much else he could do about the healing bruises on her fourth ventricle, not to mention the trauma her systems had sustained.

Once she regained her breath she asked, "Well, how long do I have to stay here, Doc?"

"I've ordered you to have take at least full day's leave. The Captain agrees," he added, when she began protesting feebly. He suspected she was arguing for the sake of old times. She had always been a difficult patient. He thought maybe she was a difficult person in general, not liking but clinging to what she knew, afraid of what she might know.

"Will I have to erect a forcefield around you to keep you here?" he questioned aloud when she shook her head again.

"No, I'll rest in my quarters," she challenged. "You said 'bed rest', but you didn't say where."

He raised an eyebrow. "If you're a good girl, I'll let you go early. But for the time being I have to keep an eye on you. I don't want all my hard work to be undone by your carelessness."

"But…"

"Do you know we were almost too late, B'Elanna?"

Her protests were struck away. She asked cautiously, "How bad was I?"

"If it wasn't for your Klingon side, you would be in far worse shape right now," he told her quietly. "You certainly wouldn't be awake. That psychopathic excuse of a hologram had been gripping your _heart_, B'Elanna, trying to stop it. The delayed medical response was a factor – you were surviving on your redundant organs that whole time after that hologram plunged his hand into you. Combined with a concussion, mild radiation poisoning and not to mention massive internal bleeding…"

"Why does it seem that I always attract trouble when I'm around you?" she grumbled.

"Must be my magnetic personality," he replied without pause.

She choked with sudden laughter. He decided to take pity on her and said in his usual complacent tones,

"Well, not to worry. I worked my miracles as usual. You'll be rampaging around again in no time. Aren't you're lucky _I'm_ your doctor."

"I'm sure I am," she managed with a half-smile. "Thanks, Doc."

"You're very welcome, lieutenant." He bustled away, making a show of putting away surgical tools and equipment, humming to himself. Humming was a habit he had picked up to while away the long hours.

"No wonder I hurt so much," she said after some reflection. "Did Dejaren – that 'psychopathic hologram' – did he hurt you at all, interfere with your programming? I know he damaged your mobile emitter. The captain will have your holographic head if you don't take care of it better."

He felt an unaccustomed warmth when she asked, pleased with her concern. Far from becoming irate, it was nice to know some people cared, he thought. "I'm quite well, thank you," he said. "Lieutenant Carey was able to fully repair my mobile emitter." And he still had his freedom!

"That's good to know," she murmured and for some peaceful moments sickbay sank back into its usual quiet.

After examining an internal scan of her chest cavity on a console, he was about to walk back into his office when the lieutenant asked unexpectedly, "But are you still _our_ Doctor?" There was a teasing note in her faint voice, but when he looked at her reproachfully her gaze told him she was dead serious. His throat tightened and he gripped the side of the biobed tightly.

"I believe I am the Doctor, still," he said hoarsely. "B'Elanna, I would _never_ become like that hologram…like that 'isomorph'. I am ashamed of even being associated with him. I –"

"He did have some points, you know," she said slowly. "About us 'organics'. We create holograms without a thought and make them do the dirty work. We treat holograms like… like objects. Do you also feel that way, Doc? That that's how we treat _you_?"

Dejaren's convincing story was immediately recalled. _"Dead, all the crew are all dead, what, what happened? They contracted a virus. I didn't do anything._

_I'm so glad you're here. I don't know what I would've done if you hadn't come for me..."_

For the first time in his holographic existence the Doctor had felt looked up to. He felt proud, responsible. He had felt an immediate sympathy for a fellow hologram thrust into an unfamiliar situation, tossed into the deep end and left to swim alone.

_"There was nothing I could do but watch them die…"_ Oh, that murderous isomorph had watched them die all right, just as he would have had the lieutenant dead. The Doctor lifted his head.

"No," he said firmly. "With my mobile emitter I have mobility and freedom. I'm part of the crew, I have holodeck privileges, and I can deactivate myself. Granted, I was unhappy when I was first activated, but I don't feel that way anymore."

She smiled with relief and whispered, "I'm glad you feel that way. You know, before this I've never appreciated how 'normal' you were, even though you would start experimenting. After that psycho took you offline – why the hell couldn't you have covered up your emitter or something! – I can't tell you how alone I felt, trapped with a homicidal hologram." She was staring up at the ceiling. "Dejaren was right in some ways. When I started panicking it was like I devolved back into some mindless _animal_. All I could think of was to do was to run away."

"You can't blame yourself having instincts," he said, genuinely worried. "Now, please relax. You won't help the healing process if you continue to agitate yourself." It seemed to him that while he had healed her physically, he had forgotten about possible mental trauma. A sudden fear of being feared rose in him, but he pushed his alarm away. He had wrestled with doubt before, and he knew what Dejaren did was no fault of his.

"It was him versus me. One of us had to go." She took a deep breath and said, "Sorry, Doc. I had to get that out."

He could only wonder about her desperate attempts to survive and quickly decided he did not want to. "I'm only glad it wasn't you, B'Elanna."

"How very sentimental of you," she said, attempting a smirk, and sickbay fell silent as they both fell busy with their thoughts.

Uncomfortably searching for a new topic of conversation, the Doctor suddenly remembered an earlier incident and pondered whether to divulge this interesting information to the lieutenant. Oh, why not. Gossip was good for the body's health, after all. It would take her mind off their disastrous away mission and give her something pleasant to sleep on.

"Speaking of sentimentality, someone stopped by sickbay this morning, bearing a rather large bouquet of flowers. I never knew he was such a romantic, actually," he said loudly, turning his back on B'Elanna. He waited and sure enough a moment later –

"Who?" Her voice was carefully neutral.

"Who? Oh, who else? Mr. Paris, of course. He was quite worried."

"Tell him I hate the smell of flowers," she sniffed, but he saw she smiled anyway.

"Tell him to concentrate on his new job," the Doctor retorted with vigour. "We got nothing done. The whole time he was here for his training session he was constantly mooning over you…"

"_Mooning!_ You! … What's this about training?"

"The captain's assigned him to be my new nurse," he groused on. He had turned the tables with a flourish. "He's to be my first student after Kes left. As if I didn't have enough to do, now I'll have to baby sit your immature boyfriend as well."

Her cheeks darkened but her grin remained. Her eyes had gradually closed but she cracked one tired eye open to glare at him. "What did I tell you on the Delta Flyer, Doc," she slurred threateningly, "Don't talk about that."

He held up his hands in the manner of conceding a minor point to a petulant child. "No need to get all excited. Plenty of time for that later during visiting hours."

He smiled and waited gleefully for a response, but there was none. He had thought that would provoke a welcome reaction from her, but… nothing. His patient had dozed off.

Again he was slightly unnerved by how fragile she looked, and compulsively he scanned her with his tricorder again. An insinuation planted into his mind swam slowly around in his thoughts. The Doctor pushed the thought down, back into the deep of his memory where it belonged, but it still surfaced.

_Organics are weak…_

In a logical and frightening way, the Doctor had to admit Dejaren was right. But that unfortunate isomorph had been grievously wrong about some things, too. Holograms _could_ make their way; he was, he thought, a prime example. Approval. Acknowledgement. Acceptance. The Doctor had all those things, and some more. Equality…well, not quite, but he was getting there. In spite of all the things he had fought for and achieved, he was still a hologram: neither superior nor inferior to 'organics', but hopefully somewhere on same level with them.

After all, he was their Doctor. They needed him, and he needed them.

"And that's why I'm here to help them," he resolved aloud, every inch the master of his lonely domain.

He stared at the monitor tracking B'Elanna's life signs, lights blinking away steadily as she breathed. _If I hooked myself up to that monitor, nothing would move, nothing would glow. I would be dead to it. But I'm not dead. I know better. _

"I am the Doctor," he said, and for now that was enough.

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End file.
